News: Condo purchases by foreigners fell sharply in Q3

Dec 4, 2018

Aerial view of luxury apartments in Singapore.

Home purchases by foreigners here have fallen significantly after the government imposed a new round of property cooling measures on 6 July 2018, reported Singapore Business Review, citing a chart from Edmund Tie & Company (ET&Co).

Amongst the major groups of foreign buyers that account for a large chunk of residential transactions in the city-state, Indian nationals were the most affected. In fact, the number of condo units bought by this group plunged by 49.2 percent to 61 units in Q3 2018 from the previous quarter.

For mainland Chinese, the volume of condo purchases declined 37.6 percent to 291 units, while that for Malaysians dropped 28.1 percent quarter-on-quarter to 197 units.

Aside from that, ET&Co noted that the new curbs have made foreigners more price-conscious when buying a residential property in Singapore.

This is because the percentage of homes priced under $1.5 million that were purchased by Indian nationals rose from 62.8 percent in Q2 2018 to 70.5 percent in the quarter under review, while that for Malaysians rose from 72.8 percent to 81.7 percent.

Nonetheless, the property consultancy believes that Singapore continues to be on the radar of foreign buyers.

“Despite the curbs by the government, the local residential market remains attractive to foreigners as Singapore continues to be a gateway to the ASEAN region, attracting foreign companies to relocate or set up their operations here.”